Weak and Ridiculous - "IX Equilibrium" Review (0%)
Weak dorito black metal, truer words have never been spoken.
But seriously, this shit is fvcking ridiculous. And so is Emperor.
The music video produced for MTV is especially funny because it's so faithful to the spirit of their music.
Thus far, the whole audiovisual project of Emperor has been an exercise in whimsical kitsch, the kind of pseudo-Romanticism that ended up giving that glorious art movement a bad name. It's the 21st-century musical equivalent of painting with your feces.
Far be it from me, a massive fan of Demonecromancy and early Graveland, to hate on an album and call it fake black metal just because it uses synths and showcases outside influences. With these bands, there's something dark, haunting and ethereal in even their most experimental moments.
Just listen to Demonecromancy's "As Sorrows Became Bloodlust" (from the "Fallen From the Brightest Throne" debut) or Graveland's "The Night of Fullmoon" (preferably from "1050 Years of Pagan Cult") - the former is a sublime commingling of contemplation and power, while the latter is a melancholic song that swells outward into unguarded affirmation of strength. In both cases, there's a real sense of danger while listening to the music. Despite the overt accessibility, this is demanding music. It's not always easy to listen to this stuff casually.
A big difference with the failures of Emperor or Dimmu Borgir.
Weak and Ridiculous
Emperor, on the other hand, is just plain weak. Even the lyrics deal with either the Alcestian themes of homosexual fairies riding unicorns ("The Source Icon of E") or downright emocore themes such as depression and suicidal idealization ("Curse You All Men!" and "Decrystallizing Reason"). An undifferentiated blur of cooing, mewling vocals over harmonically lifeless guitar work.
In most of their songs I've heard, every part is virtually interchangeable with any other part.
This lack of formal clarity is a big part of why Emperor is such limp bullshit, and it probably has just as much to do with conscious aesthetic choices as with poor songwriting.
When Ihsahn's (misguided) idea of what it means to be transported by "evil music" is getting sodomized by gay fairies, we've reach a new low in black metal history.
Like Satyricon, Summoning and Dimmu Borgir, Emperor is all about hitting us over the head with fake and plasticized "pop metal", the mundane signposts for "progressive" and "transcendental" music. You hear it in the music, and you see it in the video.
Contrary to what Ihsahn suggests in interviews, Emperor's IX Equilibrium isn't so much a return to Romantic aesthetics as a bungled pastiche found in Romanticism For Dummies. It's not transcendental, it's pedestrian.
Go ahead and make experimental, expressive, understated music all you want.
Just don't be such a fucking pussy about it.
IX Equilibrium score: 0/100.
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